Adam Grant, in his book Give and Take, explains that successful givers have a distinctive approach to success. While takers are focused on themselves and matchers seek balance, otherish givers “are inclined to . . . characteriz[e] success as individual achievements that have a positive impact on others.”
All too often, business leaders like to believe that it is the force of their vision or the brilliance of their ideas that primarily drives the success of their business. Unfortunately, that’s rarely true.
No doubt, a leader’s insight can be the catalyst that changes how a business or even a whole market operates. But few leaders work alone. Even fewer can claim sole credit for their visions or their brilliant ideas.
One of the perverse consequences of our inordinate focus on solo (or small group) success is that it ignores the input from the teams that support us. A couple of weeks ago I heard about a book by James Surowiecki titled The Wisdom of Crowds. It arrived today and after we got the kids to bed I read the first few chapters. In those chapters, James explains how a crowd that is diverse, that is composed of independent agents, and that maintains a certain kind of decentralization, will select the wisest outcome more consistently than a single person or a select group of experts.
James explains that we can make better decisions by leveraging the collective wisdom of a group of people who are each informed about the task at hand but who bring to bear a distinct set of skills and perspectives. His point is not new. But it is important.
A successful leader will surround herself with people who complement her strengths and weaknesses. She’ll put them in roles suited to their skills and interests. As she does so, she’ll build a team that expands her capacity along two dimensions. Not only will her team bring a greater collective competence to bear, they’ll also far outstrip her in the sheer number of hours they can devote to the work.
No matter how many hours she has put in, her employees collectively have known more and have devoted many hundreds more hours toward the work. This realization should inspire great humility in that leader.
This humility leads naturally to an otherish approach in business. It would, as Adam Grant says, “require dramatic changes in the way that organizations hire, evaluate, reward, and promote people. It would mean paying attention not only to the productivity of individual people but also to the ripple effects of this productivity on others.”
